Acute Sensory Perception and Intelligent Excellence
by whitchry9
Summary: A series of drabbles revolving around Sherlock having Asperger's Syndrome.
1. Chapter 1

John had been the one forced to clean up the flat, since Sherlock wouldn't care unless it was a direct threat to his health, his life, or his experiments, and even then John wasn't sure. He was sorting through the piles of paper under his desk when he came across it.

He examined it, but couldn't ascertain its meaning. He sighed, knowing this probably wasn't going to end great. He got to his feet and approached the detective, perched at his microscope for hours straight not, probably not having noticed what John was doing, and certainly not caring.

"Sherlock, what does this mean?" John asked him, holding out the business cards with the letters 'aspie' on it, capitalized and bolded, a telephone number and name underneath, with a tagline about discovering and unlocking your true potential.

Sherlock barely glanced at it before returning to his experiment.

"It means persons with acute sensory perception and intelligent excellence."

John ran through the letters in his head. It was an acronym. A highly suspiciously made up sounding one, but one nonetheless.

"You just made that up," John scolded lightly.

"No I didn't," Sherlock replied, not even bothering to look up from the microscope slide he was examining.

John felt a flicker of doubt. Sherlock sounded so sure of himself, but John had witnessed him put on the same air of confidence before and watched it crumble as soon as it could.

_Yes you did, _John thought to himself with a smile, and nodded, but they both knew he was just going along with it.

Neither of them knew why they kept going along with it, since they both knew they both knew otherwise. But some things were just left unspoken, and John supposed this was one of them.


	2. Chapter 2

Sherlock had just exploded a beaker, spilling its content everywhere. John was assured it was not toxic or harmful in any way, just... wet. And to demonstrate how wet it actually was, he was taking off his clothes.

"Sherlock," John hissed, glancing around to make sure no one was looking, despite being alone in the flat. "You can't just take your clothes off."

"John," Sherlock said with disdain, ignoring John's pleading expression to stop what he was doing. "They're _wet._"

John only looked at him helplessly and his shirt was undone and shrugged off his shoulder. He moved on to the pants.

Sherlock had been caught in the rain before and had pushed on, pursuing a suspect, tackling them, and sitting on them until Lestrade arrived, (because _someone_ had confiscated his handcuffs), returning to the flat only to fall asleep on the couch, still in his damp clothes. Why was this time any different?

Sherlock answered for him. "The Work, John. It's all about The Work."

And with that, Sherlock finished removing his clothes and skipped towards his bedroom, hopefully to put something on before Mrs Hudson came to see what John was making all the noise about.

Because there would be no convincing her they were not a couple after that.

God help them.


	3. Chapter 3

Some days were good. Those were the days Sherlock twirled as he heard about new cases, serial killers especially high on the list, and John wanted to tell him that was a bit not good, but couldn't bear to do anything to dampen the smile that took up his face. Those were days experiments didn't explode, and still produced results, the days the violin didn't cry out in the night, but instead hushed John to sleep. Those were the days Sherlock was dressed, dashing about in his twirling coat and silly scarf, talking animatedly with his hands while John looked on in awe, and everyone else in confusion.

Sadly, there were fewer of those days that John would have preferred.

* * *

Most days Sherlock flicked back and forth, like a light switch you never could balance between on and off, between excitement and boredom. One could have him exploding things in the kitchen, hopefully not body parts, and the other could leave him shooting at the wall. Life with Sherlock was nothing if not unpredictable. John found this to be a bit of a conundrum, as he thought that Sherlock would have preferred to stick to a routine, but he came to realize there was a routine, just one with a pattern far too complex for him to recognize, only seeing the faint outlines of it when he stared very hard. It never lasted long, and just left him with a headache, not the best thing when dealing with Sherlock's moods flitting back and forth.

* * *

And on particularly bad days, the ones where cases were false and sock indexes were ruined, when even the violin couldn't calm his mood, John could hear the rhythmic rocking coming from Sherlock's room. And he never said anything, just made sure there was always a cup of tea waiting for Sherlock when he came out, hair tousled, face pale, but much calmer than before.

Thankfully, those days were rare.


	4. Chapter 4

Sherlock huffed, and threw yet another large volume aside. His eyes were aching from reading small print for hours, and he was nearly to the bottom of what had been a daunting stack.

He still hadn't found what he was looking for. (False. He found things that could be what he was looking for, but didn't like them. They were discarded.) He was running out of options and patience.

The books were too old, he decided. Outdated. They were dusty with thin pages that threatened to tear if he impatiently flicked through them.

He needed _more. _

More data. More books. MORE.

And apparently this stupid public library was not the place he was going to find the answers he was looking for.

* * *

Mycroft found him shortly after that, Sherlock remembered, and took him home. He still hadn't found the answers he was looking for, and even though his brother asked if he could help, Sherlock could tell he was being nosy, and not actually being helpful.

Mycroft told Mother where he'd been, and what he'd done, and he was punished by having his chemistry set taken away for a week.

He didn't speak to Mycroft for a month.

* * *

Years later, he found what he was looking for. It wasn't his fault that he couldn't find it before, because his research skills were nearly as good at eight as they were at thirty, but because of the years.

Not until 1992 for the ICD-10, and 1994 for the DSM-IV.

He took little comfort in that fact.

He could still remember the harsh disappointment of returning home with no answers, and the added sting of a week with no experiments.


End file.
